1. First things first: Harry Potter was born on 31 July 1980, meaning he's the same age as stars like Kim Kardashian and Ryan Gosling.
Other celebs born in 1980 include Channing Tatum, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Zooey Deschanel, and Kristen Bell.
2. That means that Harry, Ron, and Hermione started at Hogwarts in 1991 – while Muggles were busy watching Beauty and the Beast and getting grunge with Nirvana.
3. And in April 1992 – a couple of months before Harry defeated Voldemort for the second time – Muggles flocked to Paris to attend the opening of a brand-new Disney park.
4. The USA elected a new president in November 1992, but the students of Hogwarts were kind of distracted, tbh, because the Chamber of Secrets had been opened a couple of days earlier.
5. While Muggles were enjoying a brand-new Christmas movie called The Muppet Christmas Carol, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were taking Polyjuice Potion so they could sneak into the Slytherin common room.
6. And while Muggle kids were still crying because Saved by the Bell had ended a week previously, Harry Potter was casually slaying a Basilisk and saving Ginny Weasley's life.
7. Then, when the kids of Hogwarts left school for the summer that year, everyone in the Muggle world was talking about a new movie full of terrifying, gigantic lizard creatures.
8. Harry started his third year at Hogwarts on 1 September 1993, meaning he missed out on watching a brand-new series called The X Files by just a few days, because Hogwarts doesn't have TVs.
9. And Harry may have been sad that following summer because he couldn't move in with Sirius, but at least he could watch The Lion King to cheer himself up.
10. This was also around the time the internet became available to the average person.
11. Speaking of the Triwizard Tournament, while the wizarding world was obsessed with who would win, the Muggle world was obsessed with something entirely different: the OJ Simpson trial.
12. And while that summer may not have been the greatest for wizards – because, y'know, Voldemort – the Muggles were being gifted with the cultural icon that is Clueless.
13. Oasis's second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, came out a few months later, in October 1995. Dean Thomas, being Muggle-born, probably played "Wonderwall" for anyone who'd listen.
14. While Harry and his friends were having their own fun with Dumbledore's Army, they were missing out on one very important piece of culture: a brand-new Muggle video game called Pokémon.
15. There seems to have been a small breach of the Statute of Secrecy in the summer of '96, because both Matilda and The Craft were released to Muggle audiences around the world.
16. And Sabrina the Teenage Witch premiered that September, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione were starting their sixth year at Hogwarts.
17. If Professor Slughorn had any sense, he would've played the hottest song of the moment – Spice Girls' "Wannabe" – at his Slug Club Christmas party in 1996.
18. If Harry, Ron, and Hermione hadn't been busy searching for Horcruxes in summer 1997, they might have recognised the stories in a certain book that was published and took the Muggle world by storm in June that year...
19. But they were running around forests and fields – probably to a soundtrack of "MMMBop" and "Barbie Girl" – instead.
20. The Muggle world was thrown into turmoil in May, when it was announced that Ginger would be leaving the Spice Girls – but the wizards were pretty busy with Horcruxes and the Battle of Hogwarts at that point.
21. Although everything would have been a lot easier if they'd just waited a few months – because Google was founded on 4 September 1998.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
